AROUND PORT ARTHUR..

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8115, 10 November 1904, Page 2

AROUND PORT ARTHUR..

(Received November 9, 8.17 a.m.) LONDON, November 9. It is officially reported in Tokio that Russians at Port Arthur sent wearers of the Red Cross uniform to the Japanese lines, ostensibly to seek for wounded men, but in reality to reconnoitre. A Japanese private who was wounded near East Ke:kwanshan Fort lay for six days where he fell, simulating death. He saw the Russians bayonet and shoot his wounded comrades. a A Japanese hospital orderly who was lying wounded was deprived of his badge and killed*

Some Japanese trenches at Port Arthur collapsed into a gallery of the Russian defensive works. Surprised at the sudden denouement, the Russians fled.

(Received November 9, 9.58 p.m.) LONDON, November 9.

Reuter's Chefoo correspondent reports that upon a Russian prisoner reporting that the garrison in Port Arthur were dispirited and indisposed to prolong resistance, General Nogi sent him back bear' ing a letter describing Field-Marshal Oyama's victories, the position of the Baltic Fleet, and the resistless advance of the Japanese trenches, offering humane treatment to surrenderee.

The prisoner leturned on the night of, J,hc 4th, and stated that his comrades would reply within a few days. Although mutinous they disliked the idea of an official surrender. The company to which the prisoner belonged originally numbered 800 men. Now only 30 are left! Forty thousand infantry sailed on the sth inst. to join General Nogi Jind repair the losses entailed by the. Mtkaoo's^birthday assaults, which are estimated at twenty thousand.